


Trust

by Nyssa



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-01
Updated: 2010-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa/pseuds/Nyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hutch manages his money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

When Ken Hutchinson awoke on his twenty-fifth birthday, he had a beautiful wife, a loyal partner, a job he considered a calling, and a fifty-thousand dollar trust fund that was now at his disposal.

The wife he would soon lose, to a combination of boredom, ambition, and contempt. The partner would stay, bound not by the obligations of marriage but by a depth of love freely given and all the more precious for that. The job he would keep through good times and bad, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until the day the sickness, the soul sickness, got to be too much to stomach any longer. The trust fund would be put to good use, though perhaps not in quite the way Richard Hutchinson had envisioned.

Half of it went to Vanessa. Not that Hutch considered that a good use, but California was a community property state. Van was entitled to half of everything he owned when they divorced, and he was more than willing to oblige. Sure, it galled him a little, but his freedom would have been cheap at twice the price. He didn't fight it.

He was left with twenty-five thousand dollars he didn't want.

Hutch was no ascetic. He liked material things well enough. He'd never known privation, and had no desire to. It was just that he had certain priorities. He needed a decent place to live, a car that got him where he needed to go, clothes he wasn't ashamed of, records, books, food, plant food. Everything else was superfluous. He knew his family thought he was insane, but that pained him very little. After all, for the past few years the country had been full of young people who'd turned their backs on society's materialistic values and set out to invent a new way of life. At least he wasn't hitchhiking the highways with all his possessions in a knapsack, or growing high-grade pot in a commune, or leading a group of underground revolutionaries in a plot to blow up the Pentagon.

He kept the trust fund money in a separate account. That way it was easy to keep track of how much of his savings was his own earned money, and how much was his father's. He always thought of it that way, as his father's money which he had no real claim to. For the first few years he never touched it, preferring to forget it was there, even tearing up the statements the bank sent him. But eventually he realized that ignoring it served no purpose. Worse, he began to feel irrationally as though it were tainting him.

He started giving the money away, little by little, to various charities and other ventures he could conscientiously support, and to individuals he believed were worth it. A chunk of it went every year to the Bay City Police Widows and Orphans Fund, another to the Marshal Center for Exceptional Children, still another to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. He gave money to prostitutes, winos, junkies, bums. He was under no illusions that all, or even most, of these latter gifts (as he thought of them) or handouts (as Starsky called them) would end up contributing to their recipients' moral or physical improvement, but that wasn't really the point. They made _him_ feel good, or at least less bad. Each one was another step away from his father, and each step away from his father was a balm to his soul.

On December 24, 1979, the balance in the trust fund account stood at $9,459.22, and for the first time Hutch regretted his commitment to charity. But that plus his own modest savings was just barely enough for Starsky's Christmas present, and his own.

"What the hell do you mean, you bought me a house?"

"I had enough for the down payment, and the loan's been approved -- "

"Hutch, you can't afford that!"

"Starsk, calm down. What are you getting excited about? We bought a house together once, remember?"

Starsky shook his head impatiently. "That was different, and you know it. That house was dirt cheap."

"It was dirt cheap because it was dirt. This is a nice house, but we won't be paying rent on two apartments anymore. We can afford it." He pushed his own brief wave of delayed panic aside. _Somehow_ , he swore silently, _we'll make it_.

"We?" Starsky repeated after a pause. "You and me?"

"Well, who the hell else, dummy?" Hutch softened his voice. "You think I'm ever letting you out of my sight again?"

Starsky stared at him for a moment before a slow smile spread over his face. "Kinda takin' a lotta things for granted, aren't you, buddy?"

Hutch pulled him close, running his hands carefully over the maze of scars on Starsky's back. "I don't think so," he said. "I think I know you pretty well."

Starsky's voice was muffled against Hutch's shoulder. "I don't have a job. And the damn disability payments ain't exactly enough to put us on easy street."

"Trust me," Hutch whispered, and kissed Starsky's hair.

 

*****

 

So the last of Richard Hutchinson's money went to buy a house for his son to live in with his male lover. Hutch's father would not be pleased. And that, Hutch thought, was sweet revenge.


End file.
